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Rio de Janeiro's police department said its homicide division will start investigating "resistance killings," or slayings by officers who say that victims died in shootouts while resisting arrest. Police across Brazil have come under criticism for using the classification of "resistance killings" to justify what human rights activists allege are often summary executions. Last year, police in Rio registered 582 such deaths — a 40 percent increase over the previous year. Rio police chief Fernando Veloso said Thursday that "resistance killings" will no longer be investigated by neighborhood precincts, but instead will be handled by the homicide...

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Rio de Janeiro's police department said its homicide division will start investigating "resistance killings," or slayings by officers who say that victims died in shootouts while resisting arrest. Police across Brazil have come under criticism...

The U.N. children's agency said on Saturday that hundreds of children were abducted two weeks ago by an armed group in South Sudan that is suspected to have ties with the country's military. UNICEF had previously said about 89 boys, some as young as 13,...

International Criminal Court judges on Friday upheld the acquittal of a Congolese man who was cleared at trial of leading a deadly militia attack in eastern Congo. Mathieu Ngudjolo was acquitted in December 2012 of commanding fighters who destroyed the...

Urine pools under a bed where an emaciated Burmese man lies wearing only a T-shirt and a diaper. As he struggles to sit up and steady himself, he tears at his thick, dark hair in agitation. He cannot walk and doesn't remember his family or even his own...

An armed group in South Sudan has abducted at least 89 boys in a northern state, the U.N. children's agency said Saturday. The boys, some as young as 13, were abducted near Malakal, the capital of Upper Nile state, according to a UNICEF statement....

Dozens of South Sudanese boys, some as young as 13, were recently abducted by an armed group in South Sudan as they prepared for school exams, UNICEF reported Saturday.
UNICEF did not say what group had seized the boys from a displacement camp, but the...

Police in camouflaged uniforms smashed into the office of Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma on Thursday and carried the opposition leader away in a move heightening political tensions in the socialist-run South American country. President Nicolas Maduro...

Shiite militiamen shuttle back and forth to the nearby front lines from a sprawling military base near the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk. They hoist billboards of their commander, bellow Shiite prayers from mosque loudspeakers and chant the name of...

A former president of Chad accused of overseeing the deaths of thousands during his time in power will soon stand trial in Senegal on charges including war crimes and torture. The Extraordinary African Chambers, a special tribunal created to try ex-Chad...

An international rights group said Shiite militias allied with Iraqi security forces have escalated a campaign of abuse against Sunni residents in recent months, as gunmen assassinated a prominent Sunni tribal leader during an ambush in a Shiite...

The sun was setting over the desert here as Lt. Col. Jose "Ed" Sumangil, commander of a B-1 bomber squadron known as "The Bats," stepped into a room crowded with pilots and crews for a final briefing before the night's combat mission....

Malaysian police have detained a cartoonist and are investigating two lawmakers for sedition over tweets and a cartoon condemning the judiciary for dismissing opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's final appeal against a sodomy conviction. Anwar began a 5-year...

Sudanese army troops raped at least 221 women and girls in a Darfur village in a series of organized, house-to-house attacks last year, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Wednesday. The organization's Africa director, Daniel Bekele, called it...

TRIPOLI, Libya Four years after the start of the rebellion that ended the long rule of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, a culture of fear and intimidation has fallen over the country. "If you have an opinion, you keep it to yourself," said...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia The United Nations and international human rights groups criticized Malaysia Tuesday after its highest court upheld a sodomy conviction and five-year jail sentence against the political opposition leader. A spokesman for the...

Reforms enacted in the United Arab Emirates have not done enough to end the exploitation of migrant workers building a high-profile project that includes branches of the Louvre and the Guggenheim museums, a leading human rights group said Tuesday. The...

If you're branded an enemy of the state in Egypt, you may never get the chance to defend yourself in a justice system racking up convictions in lop-sided mass trials. That's the united view of legal observers and human rights groups, who look with...

WASHINGTON Faced with an outraged public and political commentary that it had been humiliated by the Islamic State, the Jordanian government got a little payback Wednesday at dawn, hanging jailed militants to avenge the extremist group's killing of a...

WASHINGTON Faced with an outraged public and political commentary that it had been humiliated by the Islamic State, the Jordanian government primed for payback Tuesday as it announced plans to hang jailed militants to avenge the extremist group's...

WASHINGTON While the world worries about the growing power of Islamic State militants, some Iraqi lawmakers and residents allege Shiite militias linked to the Baghdad government are attacking Sunni civilians, driving thousands from their homes and...